Defendants hospitalised during four-day court hearing saga
Defendants hospitalised during four-day court hearing saga
BBC covers up error, but they missed a spot | Hong Kong Weekly Briefing
Yesterday, the BBC published an article on Beijing's reform of Hong Kong's electoral system with a glaring error that somehow slipped through the cracks – keep on reading to find out what it was.
Harbour Times Latest
Government can “work harder” to use internal data for the city’s benefit: smart city expert
Where did the government go right and where can it improve in its budget decisions for the tech sector?
A map is worth more than a thousand words
Do not overlook the powers of mapping in the age of geographic information systems, smart city expert Dr Winnie Tang warns.
COVID pandemic exposes growing illegal trade threat to ASEAN region
In January, police seized illegal cigarettes valued at over HK$150 million. Policymakers, business leaders, trade negotiators, academics and economists must join forces to stamp out illegal trade across all industries.
The Big Picture
National Security Law | The 47 pro-democrats were charged with subversion and spent four days in court to undergo bail hearings. Several had to be hospitalised at the end of the first day due to exhaustion, with one of them fainting in the middle of proceedings. Fifteen of the defendants were granted bail which the prosecution appealed, keeping them in custody. The appeals for four of them were withdrawn a day later, and so in the end these defendants were released.
Politics | Electoral reform was on the docket at the National People’s Congress’ annual meeting and a number of changes were proposed for Hong Kong. Some of these changes include:
The election committee that appoints Hong Kong's Chief Executive will participate in the selection of some LegCo members
An increase of LegCo seats from 70 to 90
District councillors will no longer be able to run for the position of Chief Executive and will have their powers to elect the CE removed
Phrases "one country, two systems", "Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong", and "high degree of autonomy" were taken out of the meeting’s report
Economy | After losing its top spot to Singapore on the Economic Freedoms Index which HK held for two decades, the SAR has completely lost its ranking on the Index and has been merged with China, which sits at 107th place.
COVID-19 | Registration for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines opened up on Wednesday morning for residents in priority groups for appointments in the period between 10 to 30 March.
50 years is a lot closer than we thought 😬
Harbour Times reader Ross Feingold caught this error before the BBC had a chance to remove it! Even though they corrected the year to 1997, they did not fix the false claim that the Basic Law was “agreed with the UK before the return of sovereignty”. Although China and the UK agreed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the Basic Law was crafted by the Basic Law Committee.
If you find any funny mistakes, send them to editor@harbourtimes.com to be featured in our next newsletter!